“The moons have slipped by,” Matred said. “Seven or eight of them, at least.”
“They have worked wonders in my father’s gardens and groves. It is hard work, and yet they never complain.”
“Perhaps Yalith—” Matred started, then said, “It is time we asked them to take another evening off and come to our tent. I wish Mahlah had not been lured by the nephilim. They glitter, but I do not think they are loving.”
“I will speak to Mahlah.” Noah pulled Matred down onto the sleeping skins.
“If she will speak with you,” Matred said.
* * *
The twins enjoyed their visits to the big tent, the noise and singing and laughter. Once, at the time of the full moon, Noah’s married daughters were there with their husbands and children, and there was dancing and music and loud quarreling and reconciling.
“I wish Mahlah were here,” Matred said.
* * *
Less than a moon later, Anah and Elisheba, bringing a big pot of vegetable stew to Grandfather Lamech’s tent, again invited the twins to the big tent. “But you should feel free to come more often,” Anah said. “You don’t have to wait for an invitation.”
Sandy felt her eyes inviting him. He turned away. “We don’t like to leave Grandfather Lamech too often.”
Higgaion, lying stretched out by the embers, swished his stringy little tail, raised his head, and put it back down with a thump.
Again Anah lavished her smile on Sandy. “You’re getting nearly as brown as one of us, and you have freckles all across your nose.”
“The Den, too.” Elisheba’s smile was friendly. “I never believed he’d make it. Matred thought he was going to die. But Oholibamah is a healer. And Yalith was marvelous with him.”
Sandy felt a sharp twinge of jealousy. When Yalith came with the night-light or with the evening meal, she was careful, overcareful, he thought, to smile no more at one twin than at the other. “All that was a long time ago.” He was surprised at how cross his voice sounded. “We’ve both been well for months now.”
“For what?”
“Oh. Many moons.” Moon and month did come from the same root, after all, but the people of the oasis thought of time in moons and crops and the movement of the stars.
“Yalith will be looking for a husband one of these years.” Anah’s voice was suggestive.
Elisheba was brusque. “Yalith will make a good wife. But not yet.”
Anah’s eyes strayed from twin to twin. “Hmm.” She pursed her lips.
Elisheba jiggled Anah’s arm. “We’d better be getting back, or Matred will be after us.”
“She doesn’t scare me,” Anah said.
“Who said anything about being scared? There’s a lot of work to do, and she’s getting too old to do it all herself.”
“Too fat,” Anah muttered.
“Who’s talking?”
Still bickering, the two women left, taking the empty pot with them.
The twins went out to the vegetable garden, putting on Matred’s straw-woven hats. The sun was not yet high, the shadows still long. “We’ll stay just a little while,” Sandy said.
They worked hard. The weeds, it seemed, grew up as fast as they could clear them. Weeding was a never-ending job. They did not mention Yalith. They had more than enough to do to keep them busy.
Grandfather Lamech no longer came out to the garden with them, but spent most of the day in the tent, drowsing. After the long afternoon sleep he would sometimes accompany them to the well, where they drew water, filling large clay jars, one for use in the tent. The others were for the garden, which Higgaion helped them water, spraying with his trunk, which was almost as good as a hose.
“It’s good to be working in a garden,” Sandy said, “even if it’s not the garden at home.”
“Who do you suppose is tending to the garden at home?” Dennys asked. “It’s got to be at least harvest time by now. That is, if time there is passing like time here.”
“Everything is different here,” Sandy said. “People living longer, for instance.”
“So maybe time is different, too. At home we had alarm clocks and those electronic bells at school, and here time just slides by and I hardly even notice it.”
“I don’t want to think about it, about time,” Sandy said. He looked at his twin. “We’re browner than we ever got at home. Anah’s right about that.”
“And our hair is bleached. At least, if mine is like yours, it is.”
Sandy looked at his twin. “Well, your hair is lots lighter than it used to be.”
“I wonder what it would feel like to wear clothes again?” They were used to wearing loincloths. They were even used to no showers, no water for bathing. The smells of the tent were hardly noticeable.
With a strong green vine, Sandy was tying up tall, green-leafed bushes, giant versions of the basil they planted between the tomatoes in the garden at home. Grandfather Lamech often chopped up the leaves to season his stews. “I’m not homesick anymore. At least, I’m not homesick.”
“I try not to think about it too often,” Dennys said, “except to remind myself that since I didn’t die of sunstroke, then somehow or other we ought to be able to get home.”
“We won’t be the same,” Sandy said.
Sandy made a face. “Hey, I don’t like the way Tiglah keeps coming around. I don’t think I’m ready for Tiglah.”
“Tiglah,” Dennys said, “is what the kids at school would call an easy lay.”
“Except,” Sandy said, “there isn’t anybody remotely like Tiglah at school.”
“She’s older.” Still, neither of them mentioned Yalith.
“Yeah,” Sandy said.
“The thing is—” Dennys paused. “Something’s happened. We’re not just kids anymore.”
“I know.” Sandy bent over one of the plants.
Dennys pulled up a resisting weed with such force that he sat down. “We haven’t seen Adnarel lately. Or any of the other seraphim.”
Sandy finished tying the plant to a bamboo stalk. Images of scarab beetle and pelican, camel and lion, flashed before him. He always felt better if Adnarel was with them. When the seraph was in his scarab-beetle form, he was usually near Grandfather Lamech’s sleeping skins, or on Higgaion’s ear. He gave Sandy a sense of security. “I think the seraphim like us.”
“But the others don’t,” Dennys said. “I mean, the other ones, the nephilim. I’ve seen them looking at us when they thought we weren’t noticing. And a mosquito kept buzzing around me the other day after Tiglah had been around. I don’t think it was just a mosquito.”
“Rofocale,” Sandy said. “I heard her call one of the nephilim Rofocale.”
“They don’t like us,” Dennys said.
* * *
When supplies were needed, the twins left Grandfather Lamech’s and went to the nearby shops, carrying figs, dates, and the produce of their garden to barter for rice or lentils. On the dusty paths they passed many of the people of the oasis, who always paused to look up at Sandy and Dennys, surreptitiously if not openly.
When they passed nephilim, with whom they could look eye-to-eye, brilliant wings quivered, but the nephilim did not acknowledge their presence, except in sudden reversion to the animal host, so that a tall, bright-winged man would vanish, and there would be a skink scuttling across the path, or a red ant, or a slug leaving its slimy trail.
The women, at least the young ones, let Sandy and Dennys know that they were admired. Small hands reached up to touch them. They were bathed in lavish smiles. Tiglah seemed to know when they needed rice or beans or lentils, and would be waiting at whichever stall they were headed for.
The men and the older women were different. Sometimes the twins were cursed at, spat at. They did not tell Grandfather Lamech, who would have been distressed. They learned to go to the few venders who treated them kindly and did not try to cheat.
Dennys said, one day, “Hey, Sand. If you want to go for a walk with Tiglah
, don’t let me stop you.”
“I don’t want to.” Sandy turned his gaze from the side of the path, where a vulture was picking the flesh from a small carcass.
“I mean, just because it was her father and brother who threw me into the garbage pit—I mean, I’m not stopping you, or anything.”
“No problem,” Sandy agreed.
They were careful with each other as they had never been careful before.
And still they did not mention Yalith.
* * *
Yalith and Oholibamah were helping Matred to clean the big tent when they were disturbed by the flap being pushed open, and a lavender-winged nephil came in. He spoke without greeting. “It is nearly Mahlah’s time. She will need you to help with the birthing of the baby.”
Matred held the broken palm branch which she was using as a broom. “Do you not have one of your own kind to help?”
Ugiel looked at Oholibamah with hooded eyes. Flicked a long finger in her direction. “She will be of use. And Mahlah will need her mother and sister.”
Oholibamah took a step away from the nephil. “How will we know when to come?”
“Tonight. At the time of the moonrise. I, Ugiel of the nephilim, tell you so.”
“We will come,” Matred pronounced. “I will not have my daughter labor alone.”
“Good. I will expect you.”
“We will come,” Matred repeated, “but you will wait outside.”
Ugiel shrugged. “Have it your own way. It is a woman’s job to see to all the blood and mess of a birth.” He started out, then turned his burning gaze on Yalith.
She did not drop her eyes. Biting her lower lip, she met his stare.
“You cannot have them both, you know,” Ugiel said.
Then he was gone.
* * *
Yalith and Oholibamah spread skins over some low scrub palms. Some skins they would discard, if they were too soiled. Others they would scrape and beat clean.
“What did he mean?” Oholibamah asked.
“Who?”
“Ugiel.”
“About what?”
“About not having them both.”
Yalith picked up a skin foul with spills and put it in the dump pile. “Who ever knows what a nephil means?”
“You do, and I do,” Oholibamah said. “He meant our young twins.”
Yalith picked up another skin, appearing to examine it closely. “The Sand was the first one I met. The Den is the one we saved from the sun death.”
“And they are two people, not one,” Oholibamah reminded her.
“I know. Oh, yes, Oholi, I know that. They are very different when you get to know them.”
“And you do not love one more than the other?”
Yalith shook her head. “Anyhow, they are too young.”
“Are they that young in their own time?”
“We don’t know anything about their own time.”
Oholibamah sat on a stump, a pile of cleaned skins across her knees. “I love my Japheth. I am very happy with him. I want you to be happy, too.”
Yalith shivered. “Mahlah seems to be happy, married to a nephil.”
“Our twins are not nephilim.”
“But they are different. They are not like us.”
“And you love them.”
“Yes.”
“You love them both.”
Yalith picked up a pile of skins to be discarded. “I’m going to throw these away. Then we’d better stop. The sun’s getting high and it’s too hot for this kind of work.”
* * *
Matred said to Elisheba, “You have not been to the women’s tent for two moons.”
Elisheba nodded, put her hands to flushed cheeks in an unwontedly girlish gesture.
Matred embraced her. “Is it true?”
“Yes. You will have yet another grandchild.” Hugging each other, they danced with joy.
* * *
Eblis the dragon/lizard was waiting for Yalith when she went to the well for water. He was not in his animal host, but was leaning against the trunk of a royal palm, purple wings wrapped around him, so that he was almost lost in shadows.
When he stepped forward, Yalith was so startled that she almost dropped the clay pitcher which she carried on one shoulder.
Eblis rescued the pitcher and put it down. “Every day you grow lovelier.” He touched her gently on one cheek.
Yalith blushed and reached for the pitcher.
“Let me help you,” Eblis said. When the pitcher was full, he touched her again, tracing her brows with one pale finger. “Ugiel is right, you know.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, yes, you do, my sweet one, yes, you do. And I am the only answer to your problem.”
She looked at him questioningly.
“I want you, lovely little one. You know that I want you. I can give you all that Ugiel gives your sister Mahlah, and you know how happy she is.”
“I know…”
“Those stupid young giants who dazzle you with their youth can give you nothing except grief. You cannot choose between them, and if you should choose one, what would happen to the other?”
“They have not asked me—” She faltered.
“But I have. I do. I want you.”
He bent toward her, and suddenly she felt nothing but fear. It was as he said: he wanted her. He did not love her. She picked up the water pitcher and fled, heedless of the water splashing on the ground.
NINE
Mahlah’s time, Lamech’s time
The afternoon was the hottest the twins had ever experienced. Sandy woke from unpleasant dreams of erupting volcanoes, to see Dennys sitting up on his sleeping skins, shiny with sweat.
Higgaion spent the midday sleeping hours with Lamech. At night he dutifully took turns with the twins, but Sandy suspected that the past few nights had been spent at Grandfather Lamech’s feet. The old man’s extremities tended to get cold from lack of circulation.
“Is anything wrong?” Sandy asked.
“It’s terribly hot.”
Thunder rumbled in the distance.
“That might mean rain,” Sandy said. For the moment he had forgotten that rain might mean flood.
So had Dennys. “Oh, good, for the orchards and the garden. Even with all our watering—”
The thunder came again, with a crackling, electrical sound.
Higgaion padded over to them, whimpering, looking across the tent to Grandfather Lamech.
The two boys hurried to the old man. The flap had been pegged open to let in as much breeze as possible, and the air outside was sulfurous, the sky a greenish yellow.
Sandy squatted at one side of Grandfather Lamech, Dennys at the other. The old man was propped high on folded skins. Dennys took one of his hands and was shocked at how cold it was. He began to massage it, trying to get some circulation into the withered fingers.
Lamech opened his eyes and smiled, first at one twin, then the other. When he spoke, his voice was so faint that they had to strain to hear. “In your time and place—over the mountain—is it better?”
Sandy and Dennys looked at each other.
Sandy said, “It’s very different.”
“How?” the voice whispered.
“Well. People are taller. And we don’t live as long.”
“How long?”
Dennys answered in words which seemed to him an echo of something long lost. “Threescore years and ten.”
“Sometimes fourscore,” Dennys amended.
Dennys looked at Sandy, at his tan, healthy skin, muscled arms and legs, clear eyes. “We have big hospitals—places to take care of sick people. But I’m not sure I’d have had any better care for my sunstroke there than I got from Yalith and Oholibamah.”
Sandy said, “We have showers and washing machines. And radios and rockets and television. And jet planes.”
Dennys smiled. “But I came to your tent on a white camel. Almost all the way.
”
Lamech whispered, and both boys bent down to hear. “People’s hearts—are they kinder?”
Sandy thought of the first vender who had tried to give him half the amount of lentils Grandfather Lamech had requested, and who had snarled and cursed when Sandy protested.
Dennys wondered how much real difference there was between terrorists who hijacked a plane and Tiglah’s father and brother, who had thrown him into the garbage pit.
“People are people—” Sandy started.
Simultaneously, Dennys said, “I guess human nature is human nature.”
Lamech reached out a trembling hand to each boy. “But you have been to me as my own.”
Dennys gently squeezed the cold hand.
Sandy mumbled, “We love you, Grandfather Lamech.”
“And I you, my sons.”
“El’s words are strange words. I don’t understand,” Lamech said. “I don’t understand the thoughts of El.”
Neither did the twins.
Lightning and thunder came simultaneously. Light splashed through the roof hole and the open tent flap. The walls of the tent shook from the violence of the thunder and a long earth tremor.
But no rain fell.
* * *
The twins sat on the root bench to watch the stars come out. Higgaion stayed in the tent with Grandfather Lamech. The sky still had a yellow tinge, though there was no further lightning or thunder. Tongues of flame licked up from the volcano. High in the trees, the baboons chittered nervously.
Sandy curled his toes on the soft moss under the tree root. “We’ve never been to a deathbed.”
“No.”
“I thought that was going to be one, this afternoon with Grandfather Lamech.”
Dennys shook his head. “I think he wanted to ask us those questions.”
“Does he know there’s going to be a great flood?”
“I think his El that he talks to has told him.”
Sandy picked up a fallen frond of palm and looked at it in the last light. “But the flood was a natural phenomenon.”
Dennys shook his head slightly. “Primitive peoples have always tended to believe that what we call natural disasters are sent by an angry god. Or gods.”
“What do you think?” Sandy asked.
A Wrinkle in Time Quintet Page 68